A Piece of the Action

goy!” Fueled by this insult, she got to her feet and yanked the mattress off the bed. “Where is it?” she demanded. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?” Jake asked, though he knew exactly what she was looking for.

“Don’t play the shmegegge with me. I’m looking for the money.” She began to rip the drawers out of his dresser, scattering his carefully folded clothing among the bits and pieces of mutilated rabbit.

“Enough.” Jake finally grabbed his mother, holding her arms tight against her sides. “There’s no money here.”

“Don’t lie to me. A goniff doesn’t put his money in the bank.”

“The money’s not here, mamaleh. Not that I have a whole lot, because I’m just gettin’ started in business. But what I do have ain’t here. Just try to calm down. I said I was sorry and I promise to make it up to you. I promise that tonight, when I come home, I’ll have a new coat for you.”

“You think I’d trust you to buy my coat? You think I’m a schmuck?”

“Okay, you’re right. Tonight, I’ll give you a hundred dollars to buy your own coat.”

“Five hundred,” she said calmly. “Not a penny less.”

“I’m not made of money,” Jake moaned. “For five hundred dollars, you could buy mink.”

“Five hundred.”

“Two.”

“Two?”

“Two hundred.”

“Four. I’ll make do with four hundred.”

“Two-fifty, mamaleh. And that’s my last offer. If ya don’t take it, I’m gonna move out and find a place of my own.”

“You act like a big macher, but what you are is a cheapskate. A bum.”

“I’m not changin’ my mind.” He felt her relax in his arms, heard her murmured assent, and let go.

“So, when do I get this money?”

“Tonight, when I come home.”

“Tonight? It’s already three o’clock in the afternoon. Tonight, for a big shot like you, means four o’clock in the morning.”

“I’ll leave it on the kitchen table.”

“Okay, Jacob, I’m trusting you. But take one piece of advice from a poor old mamaleh. If you don’t leave the money, don’t go to sleep. Now, I’ll make you a nice breakfast while you get dressed. And don’t bother about the room. I’ll clean it after you leave.”

Jake got himself showered, shaved and dressed in record time. In a way, his mama had done him a favor. He was supposed to meet Izzy Stein at four o’clock. Not that Izzy wouldn’t hang around if Jake showed up late, but Jake had made a very important decision about his own future and Izzy was a key part of that decision.

The rush didn’t bother Jake, either. He and Izzy had business to take care of. Which meant he’d be wearing his working clothes. Somehow, a sweatshirt, khaki pants, work boots and an ancient peacoat didn’t require a lot of care. His mother’s salami omelet, on the other hand, went down very slowly. He couldn’t understand why his mother insisted on adding a ton of garlic to everything she cooked. Not that he was foolish enough to ask her.

“Jake, you gotta get out of here,” he muttered to himself, as he washed the omelet down with several mugs of bitter black coffee. It wasn’t the first time he’d made the observation. He looked at his mama standing by the stove. She was nearly as tall as he was. And she outweighed him by fifty pounds.

“You said something?” she asked, dropping a spoonful of Crisco into the hot frying pan.

“We’re a team, mamaleh. That’s what I said.”

“That’s nice, Jakey. Such a sweet boy.”

Ten minutes later, Jake was out in the street. He took a moment to note the overcast skies and the warmer temperature. It looked like rain, which was just fine with him. Rain would keep the honest citizens off the street, the ones who felt it was their duty to report a crime. The morons.

He walked the few blocks to Izzy Stein’s hotel, the Paradise, and entered the lobby.

“You wanna go ’round the world with me, baby? Ten bucks. I do you good.”

It was too early for the whores to be out on the street, but that didn’t mean they weren’t working. Jake ignored them, nodding to the desk clerk before climbing the stairs to the second floor. Izzy had had a number of rooms in the months since Jake had gotten out of prison, always on the second floor, rear. If worse came to worst, Izzy had explained, he could jump out the window without killing himself.

“Who is it?” The voice from inside 2C was sharp and suspicious.

“It’s Jake.” The door opened and Jake walked inside. “Who were you expecting?”

“Careless got me sent up the river. It ain’t happening again.”

Jake looked the small room over, shaking his head. A bed, a table, a chair, a tiny chest. “Damn, Izzy, you could do better than this. Ya movin’ up in the world. It’s time ya had a decent front. So’s you could get respect.”

Izzy sat on the edge of the bed. “Big places make me nervous. Too many rooms. Anybody could be hiding anywhere.”

“Ya could still live in a hotel room,” Jake insisted. “Ya could just make it a better hotel room.”

“I hope ya didn’t come down here to talk about my domicile. Because Sandy’s gonna be here in half an hour.”

“Sandy? Don’t make friends with that wop, Izzy. I don’t plan for him to be around too long. He’s nothin’ but a spy for Steppy Accacio.”

“Ya know somethin’, Jake, you got one big problem. Ya worry about the wrong things. Ya wanna find out how much I care about Sandy? Tell me to kill him. Then, you’ll know. Now, what’s up?”

Jake took a deep breath. “We’re movin’ faster than I expected. Maybe we got lucky or maybe we got so much talent we deserve it. Whichever way, if we don’t look out, we’re gonna get in over our heads. What we gotta do is organize.”

“Ya don’t hear me arguin’.”

“Lemme explain, all right? Don’t interrupt. Now, the way I see it is like this. First, we got the SpeediFreight thing goin’ strong-next week, we’re doin’ another load of cigarettes and there’s plenty more comin’. Plus, now Accacio’s givin’ us a piece of the dope. We’re gettin’ the retail for all the projects on Avenue D, from Fourteenth Street to Houston. There’s ten thousand people livin’ in those projects and we’re gonna serve as many of them as we can. And that’s the point, that bit about as many as we can. I don’t know about you, but I got no desire to peddle dope on the street. If ya don’t get busted, ya gotta worry that some junkie’s gonna pipe ya for ya stash.”

“Let him try it.” Izzy lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the floor.

“Ya know what you need, Izzy? Ya need a woman. A Jewish man without a woman is helpless.”

“C’mon,” Izzy sighed. “Get to the point.”

“The point is that we gotta find some help. We need a couple of young guys. Guys just startin’ out. As long as they ain’t wops. I don’t care if they’re fucking Chinamen, as long as they ain’t wops.”

“You got anyone in mind?”

Jake grinned. “That’s where you come in, Izzy. You’re gonna be my lieutenant and ya first job is to recruit us some employees. I’d do it myself, except that I don’t know anybody. All them years in a federal joint in fucking Kansas? Talk about a wasted youth.” He shook his head sadly. “See, what I’m hopin’ is that in a few months, we won’t personally touch nothin’. We organize. We collect. But we don’t touch nothin’. Whatta ya say?”

Izzy took a moment to think it over. “I guess I could do it. You got any objection to the Irish?”

“Whatta you, an idiot? No Irishman’s gonna work for a Jew. It’s impossible.”

“No Italians. No Irish. You want I should find some Apaches?”

“Look, Izzy.” Jake took his time, reminding himself to be calm. “Try to remember what it was like to be a Jew